Day 211 - Carpeaux Pieta'


 September 7, 2020

 Gallery 552 centers on statuettes, plaques, and medallions, most of them made in France in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Many are of terracotta and were intended as models for larger figures; others are cast in bronze. The subjects are varied and include portraits, religious themes, and many classical figures. A few are erotic, if not downright prurient: a nymph astride a satyr's outstretched leg, the figures' bellies pressed against each other; a "Girl with Doves" who in her right hand holds two birds to her bare breasts while with her left hand she hoists her cloak up to her waist, exposing her long legs and nude vulva. (Believe me, the doves are not what you look at in this work!)  I don't recognize most of the sculptors, but I do note some appealing marble busts of children by Houdon, as well as his bust  of Voltaire, sculpted in 1778, the last year of the writer's life,when he was 81 or 82. Voltaire is bald and his face  deeply lined; a wry smile plays on his closed lips, and his eyes strike me as kind. It's an arresting image.

A few of the works are charming, but the only one that really touches me is a Pieta',  only about 10 or 11 inches tall and roughly modeled of terracotta, made by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux in 1864.  The Virgin's right arm holds her dead son tightly against her, while her left arm supports his sagging head; her face, its features barely suggested,  is pressed against his.  It's the very picture of grief, all the more moving, perhaps, because the modeling is so quick and impressionistic and somehow personal to the sculptor; you can practically see Carpeaux's thumbprints. The placard says that Michelangelo was Carpeaux's hero, and this small figure contains some of that master's monumentality.


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